What Rachel Maddow Has Been Thinking About Offscreen
b'\\u201cThe Rachel Maddow Show\\u201d debuted in the interregnum between political eras. Before it lay the 9/11 era and the George W. Bush presidency. Days after the show launched in 2008, Lehman Brothers collapsed, and a few weeks later Barack Obama was elected president.\\n\\nAnd then history just kept speeding up. The Tea Party. The debt ceiling debacles. Donald Trump. The coronavirus pandemic. January 6th. The big lie. Maddow covered and tried to make sense of it all. Now, after 14 years, she has taken her show down to one episode a week and is beginning other projects \\u2014 like \\u201cUltra,\\u201d the history podcast we discuss in this episode.\\n\\nBut I wanted to talk to Maddow about how American politics and media has changed over the course of her show. We discuss the legacies of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the cycle of economic crises we appear to keep having, Maddow\\u2019s relationships with Pat Buchanan and Tucker Carlson, where the current G.O.P.\\u2019s anti-democracy efforts really started, how Obama\\u2019s presidency changed politics, how Maddow finds and chooses her stories, the statehouse Republicans who tilled the soil for Trump\\u2019s big lie and more.\\n\\nBook Recommendations:\\n\\nHitler in Los Angeles by Steven J. Ross\\n\\nNazis of Copley Square by Charles R. Gallagher\\n\\nHitler\\u2019s American Friends by Bradley W. Hart\\n\\nThe Oppermanns by Lion Feuchtwanger\\n\\n1940 by Susan Dunn\\n\\nDown in New Orleans Billy Sothern\\n\\nThoughts? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com. (And if you\'re reaching out to recommend a guest, please write \\u201cGuest Suggestion" in the subject line.)\\n\\nYou can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of \\u201cThe Ezra Klein Show\\u201d at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.\\n\\n\\u201cThe Ezra Klein Show\\u201d is produced by Annie Galvin, Jeff Geld and Rog\\xe9 Karma. Our researcher is Emefa Agawu. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, Mary Marge Locker and Kate Sinclair. Original music by Isaac Jones. Mixing by Jeff Geld. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. Special thanks to Kristin Lin and Kristina Samulewski.'